By Samuel Indyk
Investing.com – The English Premier League is reportedly considering selling clips and highlights from its sporting events as non-fungible tokens (NFTs), as it looks to cash in on the booming craze.
First reported by the Financial Times, the move could see the Premier League add another revenue stream after the collapse in ticket revenue since the pandemic began.
“We are looking into it, and see the digital collectibles space as an area of interest to fans, the Premier League and our clubs,” said an unnamed source close to the league’s leadership. “[They are] currently looking to establish the right route if any for the PL to take.”
Any move to sell clips of goals and other highlights from matches would echo that seen in the NBA, which has already created and sold NFTs based on short clips from games.
However, there is no guarantee that all the members of the Premier League would agree to sell NFTs as a collective. Some of the larger clubs may prefer to handle their own strategies independently, according to the source.
The potential sale of NFTs by the Premier League comes amid what is being described as a boom period for the sale of digital artwork.
NFT sales made it into public consciousness after the artist Beeple sold a piece of digital artwork for $69.4mln at Christie’s auction house in February.
The sale of NFTs has also been cited by some as one of the reasons for the strong performance of the cryptocurrency Ethereum in recent weeks, which has cemented itself as the second largest cryptocurrency behind Bitcoin.
Payment for Beeple’s artwork was completed using Ethereum and the majority of NFT sales are paid for using the cryptocurrency.
On Tuesday, Ethereum hit a new record high above $3,500 although the price of the cryptocurrency has pared some of the recent gains and has lost around 3% in the last 24 hours.